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Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Rumors that Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is becoming an iPhoneographer are greatly exaggerated. I just got a new phone is all, and I don't use it that much as a phone, much less a camera.

No, I like my current Fuji just fine, and need it for the work I want to do, and am planning to add more XF system lenses when I can afford to.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Okay, no surprise, I got a few things about the iPhone wrong yesterday and don't want to let anyone go away with any wrong information on my account. First, "saying that an iPhone costs $199 is just plain wrong—wrong in the sense that it’s not factual, and wrong in the sense that it’s deliberately deceptive." (That's Dave R.) Some plans hide "layaway" payments for the device in the price of the plan, and it turns out it can be less expensive to pay full price for the phone and then just buy service without the device. So Bryce is right, it's expensive. Best advice is, do your homework, as I obviously did not.

One-handed shooting is possible using the volume buttons totrigger the camera

There's no shutter lag with the iPhone 6+ camera that I can detect. The shutter fires with an extremely light touch (I can't touch it lightly enough to cause the shutter not to fire) and anyway you don't need to touch the screen at all—you can shoot one-handed by pushing the Up/Down volume buttons as well—they function as shutter buttons in camera mode. As far as I can detect, IS is working both for stills and video.

A few basic navigation tips: swiping down from the top windowscreens down your daily organizer, date and weather and so forth; swiping up from the bottom brings up basic and most-used controls, like volume and airline mode, which is where the flashlight is and where my calculator was hiding; and swiping in the middle of the screen brings up local search (Spotlight) for finding things on your phone, which some people use to navigate to their apps. (Thanks to Joe H. for some of these tidbits.)

Re my prediction, I didn't explain, because I don't understand it, but my feeling is that the use of multiple miniaturized camera units, in an array, linked by software, will one day actually overtake the use of large single sensors by allowing computational photography. This will have advantages over single-image capture that we* can't quite imagine yet, but see the Lytro camera for one example. You'll be able to choose parameters after the fact that you now how to choose prior to shooting; multiple shots with millisecond delays will allow computational sharpness correction and blur deconvolution; sensor binning will allow extreme low light capture; and it's possible that R, G, and B data collection duties will be separated between different sensors—possibly even using inherent mis-registration between sensors to usefully dither image information similar to the way the new Olympus E-M5 II mimics a larger sensor. As I say I'm not an expert and I have only superficial knowledge of what I'm talking about, but I do suspect that the camera in a smartphone or tablet in the future could possibly not just exceed a current Leica S or D810 in convenience, but in actual literal image quality. That was my prediction. But you need to allow for the fact that I know nothing.

...Consider, though, how far past the imaginations of 1965 the actual state-of-the-art smartphone of today is. They literally couldn't imagine then what we take for granted now. The same will be true of cameras when we finally get past the current model of a 35mm film camera with the film in the gate replaced by one large sensor. That those are still current is primarily a conceptual limitation, not a technical one; the vast, rich market for phones will enable, and encourage, development that we can't foresee.

Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio (c. 1946) was upgraded to a two-way wrist-TV in 1964...did I mention yesterday that the iPhone includes Facetime?

My last mistake, which many readers pointed out (again, thanks) is that there is indeed a scientific calculator built in to the iPhone—you turn the calculator app sideways to see the additional function keys.

Belatedly doing due diligence in my reporting, I called my doctor brother Charlie to see if he remembered what he paid in high school for his first scientific calculator—it was $179, and he said it was "huge, the size of paperback novel." And his first outboard hard drive, the one the size of a phone book, was twenty MB, not eighty, and cost $829—and he says our other brother ridiculed his purchase, wondering how if the world he was ever going to fill up all that storage space!

Finally, a few words about the size of the 6+. I like it. It makes it easier to use as a photo viewer (photos are very seductive on the Retina screen in exquisite miniature), easier to use as a mini-tablet for reading, and easier to hold as a camera. Everything on it is easier to see and control. I can finally type halfway confidently—my fingers were just too big for the old phone's QWERTY keypad. Vs. the 6, not only has the 6+ been more popular than Apple thought it would be, but my seat-o'-the-pants anecdotal nonscientific survey indicates that roughly four out of five of us who bought 'em, like 'em. But YMMV.

Mike(Thanks to many readers for their kind schooling of Ye Hmbl. Ed.)

*And by we I mean I

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Bruce Mc: "A couple of points: First, your phone camera's properties can change by using a different camera app. I have one app set up for casual shooting and one for more careful work. I know I could change the settings back and forth in one app, but having the two apps ready to go is more convenient for me.

"Second, I agree with your predictions, but they will get people stirred up. I'm old enough to remember the film vs. digital wars in the photography forums, and now we have phone vs. dedicated camera forum wars. Actually, I'm old enough to be on the side of the film guys in the film vs. digital wars, but I came to computers early (early 1970s) and photography late (mid 1980s). Currently I love dedicated cameras, and I even enjoy my time spent in Lightroom. I have to remind myself not to 'act like a film guy' towards people who prefer iPhones."

Eolake: "I think it takes a village of geniuses to really appreciate how great and revolutionary smartphones and tablets are. Just listing all the things one can do will fill a book! It's insane. And then add the fact that they are cheap, and do most of the things they do better than the things they replaced. I warmly recommend the newest event video on Apple.com. Just one little point blows ones mind: how much an iPhone can help medical research. It will be revolutionary. And it was not even made for that!"

Andre Y: "OK, how about something positive from the iPhone camp: Apple's major promotion of good photography in their latest campaign. Why aren't the camera companies doing this? Why does it take an outsider to show us why our hobby/craft/art is so great? The promotional pictures from camera and lens companies are anti-aspirational compared to Apple's photos in this campaign. Buy this umpteen-megapickle, cast unobtainium, price-of-a-small-used car camera system, and take...uninspiring, bad pictures, or hey look, your phone can take some pretty great pictures. I think it's pretty clear that camera companies don't really care about good photography anymore: the camera equipment is now the end in and of itself, not what you can do with one. Maybe Apple doesn't either, but at least they are aligning their commercial interests with people who do, and that's worth some attention."

Jim Richardson: "Might I vote for a new camera category: the Interchangeable Software Camera. The ISC. From a fair bit of experience with an iPhone (and a few decades with SLRs) I've come to the conclusion that camera makers have seriously underrated the value of interchangeable software. Apps give you all sorts of creative possibilities. Apps are are fun. Given the choice of spending $1,000 on a new lens that might improve your pictures or spending $15 on five new apps that you can go out and play with tomorrow, I think lots of photographers are figuring out where the fun is."

Monday, 09 March 2015

We'll have a Print Offer of all three of the winning prints, with the proceeds of the sales being the prize. (You'll see the winning images at that time.) The Grand Prize Winner, David Jacobs, also wins a week at a luxury condo in Hawaii courtesy of an anonymous reader (to whom many thanks).

In addition to the Contest Winners' Sale, we have two other Print Offers planned soon: One is a single, small silver print, called "The Card Game," the best or "signature" photo my 84-year-old father took during a lifetime as an enthusiastic amateur and semi-pro (a businessman, he wrote and illustrated articles for travel and food magazines on the side). The other is that we have an agreement in principle to offer some of the uncommonly beautiful, lyrical landscape work of Kate Kirkwood, with fine prints by Ctein.

We'll be doing the same thing again with the Contest Winners' Sale as we did with the Keck Contest. Any buyer of a print from that sale will be invited to submit work for a future sale*.

As I said before, I was very impressed both by the high average quality of the submissions and with readers' obvious printing skills. There were many outstanding submissions; choosing winners was uncommonly difficult. It was a satisfying experience for me to see so much nice work and so many beautiful prints (although I think my choices will be very controversial and will lead to much discussion. I hope no one's feelings will be hurt).

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and congratulations again to David J., Missy, and David B.

Mike

*The reason for the restriction is to limit the number of submissions. The 228 prints we received for the Keck Contest were about right for me to handle; an open submission might draw thousands of prints, which would overwhelm me.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Sunday, 08 March 2015

No, it's not what you think—I haven't ditched one brand and skipped to another. My "real" camera is still my Fuji X-T1 and 23mm lens, and that's not changing. This is what I got:

Eolake Stobblehouse kindly shared his impressions of the iPhone 6+ and that pushed me over the edge. My old phone was a 4S, vintage late 2011. That's about 25 in dog years, and aren't smartphone years roughly equivalent to dog years?

In the picture (notice how I cleverly integrate the obligatory Butters shot for this week into this iPhone post—oh, canny blogger) we see Butters with Zander's former favorite new hat. Nefarious hound himself is observable in the upper right, back in the bokeh.

I took the 6+ as my only camera to a gathering last night and shot not only a number of pictures with it, but, in the "What's the World Coming To" category, videos as well. Mike shooting videos?!? Preposterous. But you know the old expression, When in iRome, do as the iRomans do.

First impressions are that the camera, despite similar specs, actually is a big improvement. It's fun to use as a camera. The only thing that satisfies my creative itch right now is Fuji's inimitable way with B&W, but this is nice for snapshots.

Casual iPhone 6+ portrait photo the way it fell out of the phone. Don't know what's up with that color—discontinuous spectrum lighting perhaps? The color was uncorrectable, except by doing this...

By the bye, let me just make a prediction based on an old column of Ctein's and my sense of the smartphone market: somewhere in the 4–10-year timeframe, phone cameras will exceed the quality of all but the best professional DSLRs. Eventually, you'll use a small device with an array of camera modules to take an exposure that allows you to select things like angle of view and focus point after the fact, like we select white balance after the fact now, and which will easily adapt to huge file sizes or super light sensitivity as needed.

Of course, my crystal ball is a good deal cloudier than Ctein's.

Mike(Thanks to Eolake)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Barry Prager: "I live in San Francisco, so I see more people taking photos than most. I used to watch them taking crappy photos with a dedicated camera, which at least forced them to take photos in the more appropriate horizontal orientation. Now they're taking the vast number of photos in the vertical position, like they were holding the phone to their ear. Usually with one hand! They would be taking photos of the Grand Canyon in a vertical position. Also the vast number of pictures will remain on their phone as they don't know how to get them onto the computer, or what to do with them if they do. Many billions of crappy photos as digital vapor. No negatives, or any record, is their future. We're in the best of times for photography, and the worst."

Mike replies: One of the theses of John Szarkowski's Photography Until Now was that devices in part dictate the way they are used. And it's not like there haven't been vertical-format cameras before...for instance the Fuji GS645s and the Linhof 220.

Linhof 220

jim (partial comment): "We're in SF this weekend and the city is plastered with iPhone photo billboards promoting it as a camera."

Mike replies: Well, I don't know, Bryce...the basic iPhone 6+ is $299 with a calling plan, and you kinda need a calling plan, since it doesn't work without one.

And this isn't exactly news, but it's a little more than just "a bloody telephone." It's a telephone you can carry around with you. And it's a very good dictation machine, with instant OCR (optical character recognition) built in. And you can write notes or letters on it...that are delivered instantly, more or less.

And I paid $700 in 2003 for a worse camera, albeit with a zoom lens. And I used to carry a pocket flashlight, which the iPhone has built-in. In the early '90s I inherited a hard drive the size of a small phone book that my brother paid $800 for...that stored 80 megabytes. My iPhone has 64 gigabytes of storage. I used to pay a quarter to play a game of Asteroids on a large machine at the corner 7-11—the iPhone offers many more games than that, lots of them free. Remember when Scrabble came in a box that contained a fold-out board and little wooden tiles? My girlfriend and I play Scrabble on her iPhone.

It's an extremely accurate pocket watch. It's also a stopwatch (I had to buy one of those in high school), a timer, and a world clock. Remember organizers, or planners? Thick sheaves of bound paper with in a leather or vinyl wraparound binding? It's got that.

I always wanted an Epson Photo Viewer but could never afford one. The iPhone serves.

It's literally easier to get the current outdoor temperature on the iPhone than it is to look out the window at the thermometer.

My brother paid nearly $200 in high school for a scientific calculator. The calculator that comes with the iPhone is pretty basic, but I'll bet you can get apps for better ones.

I used to carry a sheaf of maps in the glove box in my car. The other day I needed to go somewhere I'd never been before, so I punched a button on the iPhone, said "Fork in the Road restaurant, Mukwonago, Wisconsin," and the iPhone spoke directions that took me to the front door. You can buy devices that only do that.

The other night it showed me which lanes of the freeway were closed for construction, before I left the house.

Remember the Sony Walkman? We paid good money for those in the '80s. You can store the equivalent of several sacks full of cassette tapes on the iPhone and listen to your music on earbuds, headphones, or any external device up to a full stereo rig if you want to.

It's a web browser. Tonight at dinner we used it to look up a list of all the museums in the Smithsonian system (the Hirshhorn and the National Zoo are part of the Smithsonian, turns out). I can even watch TV shows and movies on it, although I've never done so. Could replace the in-flight movie you used to watch on a long flight, but with a movie of your own choosing.

I use it to browse real estate listings.

It syncs with my car.

Best of all, you can read books on it. It's a bit small—I prefer my iPad Air for reading—but the 6+ is easily big enough to read on comfortably. It's even a book store, albeit one where it's harder to browse. I still like real bookstores. But then, from a real bookstore, I can't buy a book on a whim at 2 a.m. without getting out of bed, and start reading it 90 seconds later.

It does quite a few more useful things as well. Like it or don't like it, it's more than a bloody telephone!

Bryce replies to Mike: "Mike, and others..when I wrote my initial note was thinking outright purchase. I do not subscribe to this stupid contract bit although our government finally got off its collective ass so we are not bound by a three year contract. It is now a two-year contract plus the cost of the phone. Problem is here in Canada contract rates are C$50–90 a month plus toll charges plus the cost of the phone plus taxes. Have friends with an iPhone 6+ who are paying about $65 a month plus taxes and that's after being loyal custmers for years. Over two years, that new iPhone might be charged out at C$20.00/month give or take. It is as bad as if it were a fixed landline."

Mike replies: Well, but do you want them to give it to you for free? It's true, as Eolake points out, that Apple is richer than his home country (Denmark). But I'll give them my money for the product they're offering. It's worth it.

Here's the best expression of my feelings about the cost of the 6+:

Stephen Gilbert: "Do ya think there's a market for 'distressed' caps? A special 'Butters edition' à la the new Leica."

Speed: "Next thing we know, Mike will have an Instagram page."

Mike replies: What's this "Instagram" of which you speak? (I love being a Luddite, or at least playing one on the Internet.)

Steve P.: "Mike, I note with interest your detailed reply to Bryce Lee's comment and I'm wondering if you can get some kind of 'paddle app' for the iphone? I ask because if the iPhone ever fails you'll be right up S**t Creek!"

Mike replies: It's an issue. I've never had trouble with it myself, but my brother's iPhone failed at night in the thick of Boston traffic when they were depending on it to get to where they were going. It also looms as an issue in case of catastrophe, for instance natural disasters or war. But I presume we are working on contingency plans, since our government is so united and acting as one for the good of the people.

Jordi Pujol: "Used to have a Samsung S4 until recently when my dad got an iPhone 6 from a draw.

"As a student always wandering between home, city and campus I quickly found a nice use of a visual snap journal for the cellphone camera. First, back in 2012 until early last year, I used the crappy 3MP of my cheapo phone. Upgraded twice and it's much more useful.

"A nice feature of the phones is that they are inconspicuous. So much that it lets me shoot scenes that I couldn't, wouldn't or shouldn't with a camera. I took a couple frames of a friend with my OM-1 (with Tri-X, carrying it daily now) and his reaction to the camera was much much different compared to the phones. Not just candids, when he was aware of being photographed his behavior was much different. Curious.

"In fact I'm going for exchange to Sweden later this year and I'm thinking of using the iPhone 6 as my sole digital camera. I can only imagine how happy I'd be if I had such a device 10 years ago at age 10. Just the camera and video and nothing else would be enough.

"The video...that stabilizer is black magic vodoo. Well, overall there is a lot of sotware voodoo that makes it a nice camera. But the IS made me shoot a lot much more video. Walkin'? No problem! Steadicam in your hands. Mike, try hyperlapse from instagram. Nice for making timelapses (I have lots of fun with it in the train and landscape).

"...And a couple of years ago I was a bit skeptical on phone photography. I am 20 now. By the way, this comment written in my iPhone 6."

Robert: "Most people taking photos with a cell phone are producing images that are better in almost every way than those produced by skilled amateurs on their high quality film cameras 30 years ago. The cell phone also offers possibilities that have created completely new markets where many of us traditionalists do not take part. When my daughter and I take our Labrador for a walk in the forest, she takes several 'snaps' which always make me think that I would have not been able to do better with my D800. Thus, I feel a point will be reached soon where sales fall and it will no longer be viable for the Nikons and the like to stay in business. I'm now looking forward to this as it might mean a return to my old film cameras. Using these wasn't just about taking photos, it was, in my case, as much about handling them and the non-instant approach."

Friday, 06 March 2015

From the believe-it-only-when-you-see-it world of Sony comes another sign that the wide-ranging former world-bestriding giant really realizes it needs to get serious about lens lines (comma, yay). Four beautiful new full-frame lenses for full-frame Sony E-mount are available for pre-order and thus are, to all appearances, um, real.

A curious side-note about the 35mm ƒ/1.4 (pictured) is that there seems to be almost a genetic link to an ancient Zeiss C/Y strategy. In 1972 when Zeiss entered into a cooperative agreement to make lenses for Yashica-built, Porsche-Design-designed cameras branded with the old Zeiss model name Contax, its strategy was to mimic Nikon's practice of making a more premium line of faster lenses (then preferred mainly by pros and well-heeled amateurs), and a slow, more compact, more affordable version in the same focal length for those who needed those properties. In the new fast 35mm and the existing ƒ/2.8 35mm lens, that old strategy has been duplicated duplicated.

There are lots of reasons to buy a lens, and there are other parameters to look at (close-focusing distance, system considerations, weatherproofing, IS). But doesn't this kinda look like you're sacrificing TTL viewing and still having to buy a lens that's as big, as heavy, and as costly as the biggest, heaviest, and costliest DSLR lenses?

I guess everybody knows my current choice (Fuji), but I hafta say that APS-C and Micro 4/3 mirrorless certainly rationalize well as great compromises of competing factors**. Could be that's just me being a typical gearhead and self-approving my own choices post hoc; can't deny the possibility.

Mike

*Indicates approximate size of objective (outermost element)

**Granted this doesn't make the Sony A7 II look any less like catnip to this cat. Even so, I think my next camera will be this one, as a backup/second body to my present one.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Gordon Lewis (partial comment): "...There may be a lot of Sony A7-series owners who bought them less because of their small size than for their relative affordability as compared to other FF cameras. There are photographers for whom nothing matters more than having the highest spec lenses available, regardless of size or cost."

[To see the full text of partial comments, please see the Comments Section. —Ed.]

Patrick Perez: "Duplicated duplicated? I don't know whether to respond 'You can say that again' or 'I see what you did there.'"

Dennis (partial comment): "Personally, I'm very interested in the 28mm ƒ/2 for my A6000. The old Minolta 28mm ƒ/2 was my favorite lens when I was shooting A mount (K-M 7D and Sony A700) and before that, I really enjoyed a rangefinder with a 40mm ƒ/1.8. It's a little bigger than I'd like (I'd love a dedicated APS-C lens like the Samsung 30mm ƒ/2) but the focal length is ideal...."

Ben Shugart: "When Leica can build a 35mm ƒ/1.4 for the full-frame digital M at 320 g and a 56mm front element, what design elements of Sony E-mount cameras necessitate a 35mm ƒ/1.4 at 630 g and a 72mm filter thread? Does AF require that much weight in incremental mechanics?"

Mike adds: A fondness for large size is also a longtime tendency of Zeiss SLR lens designs. There have been many that were at or near the largest size and/or heaviness of their respective classes. Contax shooters were used to this.

Wayne: "It's odd, the direction the A7 has taken me. I have fallen in love with the thing because it has allowed me to use all the great old legacy glass I have. I have never had time to even consider the shortage of E mount glass. I mean, with the A7, I can now play around with the FD 85mm ƒ/1.2 on something other than the ancient F-1. The Sony/Zeiss 35mm ƒ/1.4 for $1,600?, can't I get the real Zeiss equivalent for about the same, and use it forever?....Pass it on to future generations for their enjoyment?

"The latest twist is that it has directed me back to Pentax. Now, everything can be viewed from a FF A7 angle: hey, if I don't like the camera, the glass will always work on the A7. Recent fire sale price on the K5II's was irresistable. Among other amazing stuff, I was able to purchase an ancient Pentax K mount M SMS 35–70mm ƒ/2.8–3.5 zoom (like new) for $150. It's nice. Real nice. I can use it on the K5II; or, if I want FF and EVF, it goes on the A7.

"I think I will pass on these new E mount lenses until the price drops. On second thought, maybe I will use the money to upgrade to the A7II, and gain the IS for all these old gems."

Alex Schorsch: "Sony have the best sensors in the business. Their glass is also better than the Canikon offerings. The FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 is considered to be a mini-Otus. This 35mm ƒ/1.4 Zeiss is already getting rave reviews—it will probably prove to be one of the best 35mm lenses in photographic history in terms of Bokeh and sharpness. If you don´t want heavy—then just buy the Zeiss Loxia line which is smaller and offers Zeiss quality in ƒ/2. I bought the Sony RX-1 and am blown away by the quality of the glass and sensor. Sony is one of the 'Big Three' now and are revolutionizing the game. I'm biding my time to buy into the A7 system. Waiting to see what the second generation A7r substitute will be like. Can't handle lugging my Canon equipment around anymore."

Thursday, 05 March 2015

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Peter Gilbert: "I believe this came about as a direct result of the major earthquake that struck the Osaka-Kobe region in the first part of the 1990s (I was in Japan the, but I can't remember the date offhand). So many houses were destroyed the authorities set up 'temporary' housing like what you see in this photo. But, the people relocated to these areas became close neighbors and resisted being resettled to permanent new housing."

Hudson: "Did some Goggling and found the story. The team was sold and moved to another city. The stadium was used to display model homes. It has since been torn down and replaced with a mall."

Mike replies: Figures. I like Peter's vision better—a tiny, quirky, but close micro-community in a little bubble inside the big city. Sigh.

Peter Gilbert adds: "On closer inspection I see Ned's image was shot in 1991, before the great Hanshin earthquake that I mentioned (which occurred in 1995), so although my previous comments about folks being relocated then resisting relocation are true in general, this situation at the old Osaka stadium is obviously not one of those. Apologies for the error."

Ned Bunnell: "To provide some context for this photo, Osaka stadium was home to the Nankai Hawks baseball team. I remember the Hawks name because I bought caps for my boys and they were quite the curiosity item with all their friends. The Hawks were sold and moved to Fukuoka City in 1988 or 1989. Since the stadium was abandoned, the City of Osaka, working with a trade group, turned it into a giant outdoor home show with rows of various model homes from several construction companies.

"If I remember correctly, the houses were a failure, as most Japanese in the greater Osaka area were not interested in western style housing and the quality of construction was not up to their expectations. I think the stadium was finally demolished in the late '90s."

"There's another creepy mannequin of Björk as a psychedelic Sherpa, from her 2007 Wanderlust video. There are many other creepy mannequins. Now that I think about it, this may be more of a show for fans of creepy mannequins than it is for fans of Björk."

"Once you have cleared a gallery, guards prevent you from going back, giving it the distinct feeling of being on a forced march through a prop closet."

Fun. (I like Artnet News, which is how I found this. You can subscribe to a daily or weekly newsletter. I should also say I was in love with Björk's darkling song "Human Behavior" a number of years back—no hate for her, although maybe visual art isn't her primary creative genius. Next Up at MoMA: David Byrne's album covers and big suits? Richard Gere's Tibetan photographs? Fingerpaint paintings Miley Cyrus makes with her tongue? C'mon, MoMA, take yourself seriously.)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Wednesday, 04 March 2015

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "Good quote! I met Duane Michals about 10 years ago. He impressed me as a very lovely, very animated, and very opinionated fellow. I can easily envision him saying this to someone. Of course there is one catch to this directive: what if you discover you've nothing to express?"

A couple of friends and I have privately wondered about the eyebrow-raising publicity juggernaut behind photojournalist Lynsey Addario's new book It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War. She's been all over the MM hyping the book. Deservedly, but still—photographers don't usually raise quite this much interest.

Well, the plot thickens: just on Monday, Warner Brothers secured the movie rights to the book (apparently in exclusive bidding), and Steven Spielberg is already slated to direct current "It-girl" Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role.

It will be the first time in 30 years that Spielberg has directed a female lead. The last time was Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple in 1985.

Lawrence is both a movie star, raking in the cheddar in pop fodder, and a serious actress, one who is by some reports exceptionally avid for dramatic roles worthy of her very considerable talents. If you haven't seen her yet in something that isn't slathered and greased in CGI, check out Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, a harrowing tale of a young (and female) orphan caught between the vicissitudes of the drug trade and the strict (and sexist) traditional Ozarks mountain backwoods culture. Winner of the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, and lastingly superb.

I'm eager to know more of the hidden story here—whose interest has been driving this, and when did it start? To my reading it's possible that the book was significantly ghostwritten (it's at least very well edited—you just don't write that well without practice), so the publicity behind the book and possibly even the book itself could have been driven by the interest of one or the other of these Hollywood bigs. And possibly from very early on. (Wish some real reporter would bird-dog this; smells like an interesting tale to me.)

Anyway, a big-budget photographer movie comin' someday to theaters near you, and that's good news.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Stan B.: "I've been wondering too. Seems she suddenly burst on every radio station and media outlet for a week there—same questions, same answers (almost verbatim, as if scripted). Good on her, but the whole affair did seem somewhat...odd. As for her story going Hollywood—definite mixed reaction. Hope I'm not the only one a tad leery about Spielberg reaching into his cinematic bag of tricks—I'm still smarting from his colorization gimmick in Schindler's list.

Mike adds: And Schindler's odd, sappy, retrospective outburst near the end, which you almost can't help but read as the character and actor being the mouthpiece of the director, and which catastrophically torpedoes the greatness of the film (it's still very good). Spielberg is the Norman Rockwell of movies, superbly skilled but with a core that essentially thrills and vibrates to the maudlin and the mawkish. It's almost guaranteed that his portrayal of Addario will be a) overcooked at least at points (a fault of all of Hollywood, though, so we can't lay that entirely at Spielberg's feet) and b) excruciatingly corny at one or more key junctures, infecting the toughness and naturalism of the story.

Stephen Scharf: "Don't forget about Jennifer Lawrence's performances in both Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Both incredible, superb performances. I personally don't have an issue with Lawrence working in pop fodder; it likely provides her the financial independence for her to do more serious work. John Cusack took the same approach so he could work in films like High Fidelity and The Thin Red Line."

If you look in vain for your own name, take heart. The competition was fierce; there were many fine photographs and many fine prints submitted. I have had the devil of a time doing the judging. Many of the non-finalist entries were very fine.

Also, there were a number of people who submitted outstanding work that I just didn't think was exactly appropriate for a print sale, which is what we're aiming for here. Joseph E. Reid gets an Honorable Mention on this score, and so stands for a number of others as well.

I might add that it's been a great pleasure for me to see so much nice work "on the paper" so to speak.

I've already chosen the winner and first runner-up, who will be announced shortly. First I have to select a second runner-up, which I'm having trouble with (I need help; it's why there are often multiple judges for contests, to offer different perspectives and tastes and give all the judges others to push against—sometimes clarity comes from the cauldron of dispute).

Finally, I'll add that I could have gone any one of several ways with winning picks.

We'll have a sale of the three winning prints, with the grand prizewinner also being offered the free week at the luxury condo in Hawaii donated by an anonymous reader.

Two hundred and twenty-eight prints were submitted altogether. I'll offer a few random thoughts about entering contests, seen from a judge's perspective, soon.

More news soon.

Mike(Thanks to everyone who entered)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill Mitchell: "Never heard of any of 'em."

Mike replies: Until now.

Rod Graham replies to Bill: "Haven't heard of George Barr? He does some beautiful, thoughtful work, and is an excellent writer and teacher. Might want to Google him. Several good photography books to his credit."

Tuesday, 03 March 2015

Introduction:Recently I mentioned, a couple of times, the formulation "successful art convinces" or words to that effect. I was sure I'd written about the idea before, but I couldn't say where or when. So I've been doing a little digging through the archives. I couldn't find anything on the new TOP or the old TOP, or in the old Sunday Morning Photographer, or anywhere else online, and it wasn't easy coming up with anything from my magazine days either.

I did find this. It was published in Camera & Darkroom magazine in 1993. At the time I had recently met John Szarkowski; I believe the eminent critic A.D. Coleman had recently joined the contributing staff of the magazine; and I was up for the reviewer's position at The Washington Post (didn't get it, but it didn't matter because it paid so poorly and I actually needed money). So you might notice the tone is a bit more serious than my writing here on TOP. However, it's good for perspective to keep in mind that as a critic, I was very far on the loose, casual, and colloquial side of the spectrum, which caused (and still does cause) some initiates to despise me. I did have ambitions to be a critic at one time, but I wanted to write for "real people" and not just the closed circle of sophisticates and habitués. I may be an outsider among photo enthusiast writers because I'm a bit too art-historical, academic, and concerned with aesthetics, but I'm an outsider from the other side as well, because I'm too populist and too willing to engage with the verboten dirty bits like gear and technique. The way I used to describe it is that Benihana, the Japanese steakhouse, is called "Benihana of Tokyo" in New York and "Benihana of New York" in Tokyo*. It's Japanese-American food, and which one it seems more like to you will depend on where you are and which direction you're looking.

So here's that ancient essay, which touches on that idea we were talking about, for those few who might be interested. I've made a few minor edits.

*If that's not true, don't tell me, I don't want to know.

The question "Is photography art?" was an important one in the history of the medium from about 1880 to about 1920. Most discussions of the subject later than that were defused by the fact that many of the pictures originally put forward to support photo- graphy's claims to being high art—a style known as pictorialism—were derivative and imitative, and proved to be an evolutionary dead end. The intellectual arguments of the partisans might seem dated to us now, but the principal problem was that the pictures themselves simply didn't hold up their end of the bargain. The eventual conversion to modernism of the art side's most eloquent and impassioned advocate, Alfred Stieglitz, effectively ended the discussion. From an art historical perspective, Emerson can be said to have established the centrality of the argument, and Stieglitz's publication of Paul Strand's "Blind Woman" in Camera Work in 1919 is a convenient enough signpost signaling that the argument had become obsolete.

Most contemporary commentators are content to dismiss the issue either by questioning its relevance or by concluding that it can't be resolved. Yeah, photography sort of is art, they seem to be saying, but it sort of isn't, and besides it really doesn't matter.

Such prevaricating aside, I'd like to propose and try to defend what may be a novel assertion about the matter, because it happens to be what I believe: that photography is not an art, but that some photographers are nevertheless artists.

To understand what I'm saying, you first have to make the crucial distinction between photographs and photographers. Empirically, it is obvious that photographs are made by all sorts of people (sometimes even by machines) for every conceivable sort of purpose. Billions and billions of pictures have been made. Let's call this the "corpus of all known photographs." Looking over representative samples of such pictures,** it is manifestly possible to discriminate among them: that is, to distill a few good ones from all the bad ones. As is the case with a single photographer looking over a pile of contact sheets, any such "editor" will occasionally come across a particularly fortuitous felicity, which might be called—to borrow a term from pop music—a "hit." One person's hits may not be the same ones another person would identify as such, but, just as in music, some rough sort of concensus is implied. Furthermore, it is possible to sample deeply and widely across the corpus of all known photographs and use the fruits of one's investigation to come up with good ideas and supportable theories about the nature of the medium. It is even possible to sort out pictures which resemble very closely, in every respect, pictures made as conscious art by conscious artists.***

I have in my own collection a number of examples: a photograph made of a shy child by a policeman who was giving a lecture on safety at a grade school; an ID shot which was discarded because the subject's eyes were closed; family snapshots, of course; a publicity picture made for a newspaper advertisement in 1928; pictures made by my former high school photography students, years ago, some of which I selected from their contacts myself; colored postcards; an Air Force propaganda photograph from WWII; and an old Polaroid which has become partially metalized and has partially faded because it wasn't coated adequately when it was made. Although not directed by any single sensibility—in some cases not by any sensibility at all—all of these photographs are "hits," you might say. That is, they all work as pictures.

In order to make that claim for such pictures, however, you have to be willing to re-interpret them, at least partly. You have to assume that the photographer didn't really know the whole story about what he or she was doing, or about what the camera did, and that the pictures have a meaning or an aura that exists separately from what the photographer intended. A 1930s stage manager who used a press camera to make a record of how a set was constructed may inadvertently have made a very fine picture, but it is not a requirement that he have known, either before or after the attempt, that a fine picture would be, or was, the result. It is not even a requirement that he care whether his picture was a good one or not. We might assume that he found the picture satisfactory only insofar as he could use it to help him remember and re-create a certain set later on—a use of the photograph which is utterly irrelevant to most later viewers. (Except maybe modern stage managers.)

Photographs seem intrinsically susceptible to this sort of relativism. Give me a stack of any sort of random pictures—insurance records, old snapshots, school portraits, whatever—and, assuming I have enough of them, I'll find you an exceptionally good photograph or two. Curators and commentators love to do this even to the work of conscious artists who meant to author their work, finding in the work something they suppose the photographer didn't exactly mean, but which is there anyway. In this subtle way, the "history" of photography is continually and subtly re-cast. Modernism finding its antecedent in Atget (an out-of-work actor photographing scenes to sell as artists' references) is a perfect example.

The flip side of this relativism is that work which has been shaped with firm control to conform to the photographer's ideas about art sometimes has to be dismissed in retrospect because those ideas were so wrong. (Or maybe just because they were just so lame, as is the case with the later pictorialists, or with most advertising photographs.)

I have a distant ancestral relative, for example, who was a photographer, and a box full of his old glass plate negatives have come down to me. For a while after I got them I returned to the work repeatedly, trying to unearth a treasure. But what ultimately struck me about the work is how relentlessly uninteresting it is—there is plate after plate of nothing but picturesque foliage, marginally enlivened by the occasional river or footpath. I almost feel that anything would have been better, including if he had just played the photographic equivalent of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and turned his camera randomly on whatever happened to be around him with his eyes tight shut, and photographed what it happened to come to rest upon. It's unfortunate, but no amount of sympathy or credit will rescue his work from dullness. The one good picture is a record shot of his darkroom workbench, a picture which is completely uncharacteristic of all the rest.

It seems clear to me that if you do take the corpus of all known photographs as your guide, and attempt to discover the nature of the medium from whatever subset of those photographs that you can get your hands on (I mean all those that you can get to see), then what you are likely to conclude is that photography doesn't want to be art. It's too unruly, for one thing. It wants to be plastic, provisional, approximate, inscrutable, susceptible to a range of differing and sometimes conflicting interpretation. In fact, it resists being art—it just wants to be. And sometimes when you force it into being art, as was the case with my relative, it will defeat you. Whole bodies of work by erstwhile artisans look meaningless and empty in retrospect, a silent mockery of their sundry heartfelt apologias and earnest intentions, because they somehow weren't been able to locate ideas which were amenable both to themselves and to their alleged medium at the same time. Empirically, the fact that photography sometimes works in ways similar to the ways art works seems incidental, even accidental, and largely irrelevant.

The idea of expressionThis would seem to bode ill for individuals who for some reason became enamored of the idea that the medium can be used for expressive purposes.

If photography is a craft, like ceramics, and if it is used for all manner of mundane purposes (like ceramics is used for plates, planters, toilet bowls, and power line insulators), and all the uses it's applied to don't seem, in total, to amount to a sufficient argument that most photographs are equivalent to conscious art, then what have you got?

But hold on a minute. One test for art—what you would call a diagnostic criterion, if you were defining an illness—is that it convinces you. You can tell from looking at it that it amounts to something more than a mere record, that it has expressive content, that it possesses the aura of an object. (Walker Evans called it "quality.") And, sure enough, in the history of photography, there are not one, not ten, but many, many individuals whose work has that crucial quality: it convinces us. It seems different and apart, eloquent, complete. You would never mistake a Bill Brandt for an Edward Weston or a Diane Arbus for a Dorothea Lange. So it would seem that photography is not just a craft after all, not just a technique of image manufacture, but something more. What's important here is this fact, that some people have in fact used the medium of photography for artistic expression and been very successful at it. I'll leave you to select your own examples, so that we don't get embroiled in defining that word "successful." (If you choose Daido Moriyama, you might disagree if I used Carleton Watkins as an example, and if you choose Watkins, you might disagree if I said Moriyama. But even if we can't agree on which artists were successful, at least we can agree that artistic success is possible.)

So this is the other way of looking at photography in an empirical fashion, to try to discover what it's all about: by first determining which artists have used the medium to best effect, and then studying them and generalizing from their work. This approach seems natural, too, because it's more similar to the ways in which historians and scholars of the traditional media have gone about their work.

IntegrityI like photographs. I mentioned earlier some examples of some of the "found" pictures I value. But I tend to like photographers more: not only because I am sympathetic to their struggle, and sensitive to their problems, but—and this is crucial—because I am convinced by their work when they succeed. So, as a viewer, I am willing to spend time and care and effort to try to unlock the secret of what's inside them, the mystery of what they're struggling to "put into" their pictures. What interests me is not so much the fact that some small subset of all random photographs happen, by chance, to be good ones; I am more interested in what all of one person's photographs can tell me about that person's thoughts and ideas and feelings and values, and how completely that can be communicated in pictures.

One thing this interest requires and assumes, though, is integrity on the part of the photographer. If the photographer won't be honest, or if he or she imitates a generic style, or allows other people to tell him or her what to photograph, or merely pursues superficial technical effects, then it gets harder to tell what they're really all about. These days, the biggest impediment to integrity in photography is the divergence between what individuals would do if left to their own devices, and what they often must do with their photography in order to earn a living****. I think this accounts for my general dislike of professional photography, and of generic photography, and explains my constant stumping in favor of what I call "authentic" photography: I always want to see the artist behind the art, and, moreover, I want the art to have a chance: a chance to succeed, to communicate, to convince.

I'm not trying to be elitist about this. I'm merely expressing the faith that, even if photography is not automatically an art, then at least some photographers can be artists, assuming they're both talented (or smart) and honest with themselves. In general, one must admit, most photographers fail at being artists. This is true even when they're trained and such and when that's specifically what they're trying to be. The ones who succeed the best, I think, are the ones who don't try to rig the game, who do their own thing, who don't try to second-guess the arbiters of style and taste, who don't judge themselves only by the acceptance of others, who are willing to experiment, to loosen up, to stay honest with themselves, and, above all, to listen and respond to what their gut tells them about their work.

The people I'm describing are, as far as I'm concerned, the only real photographers. Not the ones Dorothea Lange called the "the Success Boys," who make photography pay, but, rather, those who somehow manage shove the craft of photography kicking and screaming into the realm of consistent personal expression. They're the ones who really make this medium vital for the rest of us, and it's those people whose work we try to bring you in the pages of Camera & Darkroom. They're the ones who make photography worthwhile. Here's to 'em!

And if that's what you're trying to be, why, then, here's to you, too. Good luck, and don't ever quit.

**As Roland Barthes pointed out in Camera Lucida, no one has ever seen even a very substantial fraction of all the photographs that exist; Niepce may have been the first and last person who ever saw "all photographs," although in his case it wasn't saying much. What this means is that everyone always has some different subset of all photographs in mind whenever he or she says "all photographs."

****I would probably have to amend that now, since there are now far more photographers and far fewer of them try to do it for a living. If you caught a whiff of antipathy here, I also think that when I wrote this I was not too far from a difficult six-month stint as a 60-hour-a-week assistant to a studio pro who was a bit of a psycho toward me, and I still resented the experience.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Brad B: "I bought a book for a photography class I took in school. I think the book was called Criticizing Photographs [by Terry Barrett of Ohio State University, Fifth Edition 2011 —Ed.] One idea from the book stood out to me back then and it came to mind while reading this. For a long time the question was, is photography art? Photography has changed so much since that question was first asked. Perhaps the better question now is: Yes, it's art, but is it a photograph?"

Rip Smith: "I think this article is as relevant today as it was 1n 1993. With the explosion of digital images from smart phones and other digital cameras, the corpus of all known photographs" today is truly ovewhelming. Yet separating out images that could qualify as art may not be as difficult as it might seem because the best images stand apart from relative sameness of so many of the images. 'You would never mistake a Bill Brandt for an Edward Weston or a Diane Arbus for a Dorothea Lange' is a strong point. That work that has the 'quality' stands out not only from the crowd but stands separate from others with that quality.

"I've said that whether a photograph is art depends on the intent of the photographer. That's not to say it is 'good' art, but art nonetheless. Yet it strikes me that in some cases, the quality of the photograph transcends this definition. Images by Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans, for example, mostly intended to document, stand out to me as art.

"As it is sometimes quipped, if you ask 10 photographers 'is photography art?' you'll get 11 opinions. Perhaps the benefit of the discussion is that it makes us think."

Steve Jacob: "For hundreds of years, painting/drawing had mainly practical uses. It was the preserve of artisans who worked primarily for the church, the nobility or the state for the purposes of flattery, propaganda and decoration. It was only the extreme skill of some, or the historical significance of their work, that elevated them above the mundane.

"Thankfully, most of these practical uses were usurped by photography. I would argue that the reason is not because it was easier, but because it was infinitely more successful, adaptable and accessible.

"It's probably for this reason that I much prefer painting that is impressionistic or abstract. It does something that photography cannot do. It provides a unique form of self-expression that is as personal as a poem. It influences opinions and aesthetics, but it is a personal interpretation of reality. Intent is implicit in its meaning.

"Photography can play a uniquely complimentary role to interpretive art by being entirely objective. It can rely exclusively on 'found objects' as the source of its material. It can present a cameo of reality, a small jigsaw piece for us to fit into our own puzzle.

"If painting and poetry are about inspiration and ideas, photography is about discoveries and facts. A very Dusseldorfian view is that a photographer's role is to discover and present, not to idealise and interpret. Painters and poets can always do that far more convincingly.

"In the science world, we call this experimental and theoretical. One discovers and measures with painstaking objectivity, the other interprets, formulates and asks new questions, but one cannot exist or progress without the other. Progress relies on inspiration, but evidence is the foundation on which it is built.

"Facts have as much likelihood of being useless and mundane as ideas. To be 'successful' they also have to surprise, inform and even challenge us. We are all at a different stage of completing our world puzzle, and we all have a different desire as to how that puzzle should turn out.

"This explains our wildly varied reactions to different images and our hot tempered preferences. Either we struggle to fit the piece or know where to put it, or we don't like what it is doing to the overall picture.

"However, to claim that photography cannot be art is to claim that art is all about opinions and not about discovery. This is about as stupid as claiming that science is only about theory and not about evidence. Inspiration and discovery are the Yin and Yang of human progress. One is empty and pointless without the other."

Monday, 02 March 2015

Rodger, how has the Blurb experience been for you? Was the printing and color reproduction to your satisfaction? I was very impressed with your images.

Here's Rodger's answer:

Chester, this is my third book with Blurb. I've been very happy with them and, equally importantly, no one who has bought one of my books has ever had a single complaint about production quality. I'm always careful to upload high quality JPEGs, and have never had any issues with color balance or image density.

I have always used their original book design program, BookSmart, which I've found to be quite workable. I'm very careful and go over the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, and it still takes me two or three proof copies before I get it exactly right. Blurb also has a newer program, BookWright, that I haven't tried yet.

There is only one problem, one that comes at the very end, called Payment: Blurb books are expensive. This book, on premium paper, cost me nearly $100; that's why I've issued it signed and limited and bundled it with an original signed print. After all, who would buy a book like this by itself for $125 or more?

However, the bottom line is that I don't know of anyone out there making Print-On-Demand books as well as Blurb does. They are a top-notch, professional printing house.

I hope this answers your questions. And thanks for the compliment about my images.

Mike(Thanks to Chester and Rodger)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Derek: "I've used Blurb several times non-professionally and have also been immensely pleased with them. Even their cheaper options are significantly better than the more popular print-on-demand services we've all heard of. This was a few years back, but trying to find someone who did full bleed was also a challenge, which is how I originally found Blurb."

Victor Bloomfield: "I'll second Rodger's positive comments about Blurb. I've made about 70 Blurb books. Most of them are 'fine art' photos of our travels, in 8x10 softcover landscape format of about 100+ pages. Those cost about $50 per copy. I've done a few 12x12 hardcovers, which indeed cost around $100. But Blurb does a good job, and they're worth it.

"Self-publishing forces you to choose your best, portfolio-grade images. And publishing your best photos in books is a way to enhance the likelihood that they'll be around after your hard drive has crashed and your web-posting site has disappeared."

Frank P: "I've been doing Print On Demand since the get-go and the pricing reflects what you get. One-off Blurb books are unimaginably great deals compared to what an equivalent book would have cost just a few years ago. But there are cheaper, somewhat cruder options. And there are much, much more expensive alternatives that are essentially bound volumes of high quality inkjets. Blurb has steadily improved over the years and they offer several levels of 'book building software' with the base simple enough for a casual amateur to create a respectable family album in an evening or three. Their mid-level BookSmart app rivals professional layout software from the 1990s. And real pros can build their books using Adobe InDesign CS and submit PDFs. You need to read the instructions and plan on doing at least one round of experimentation to get it close. Blurb print quality will never surpass the best conventional books but it will often be better than many mediocre commercial books. They aren't Meriden Stinehour / Richard Benson / Swiss gnomes art productions but they do make a lot of people happy."

David Paterson: "I can confirm everything Roger says about Blurb—I currently have my fourth Blurb book in preparation and will undoubtedly do more in the future. I use their medium-quality paper and find the results to be excellent in terms of colour, contrast and resolution of detail. I ran my own publishing outfit for ten years and look back with horror on the lottery (and sometime nightmare) that was litho printing; plus, in the UK market, you had to print a minimum of around 5,000 copies to make the financial arithmetic work; then you had to raise $25k to pay for the printing; then you had to sell 3000+ copies just to break even. 'Print to Order' is a completely different ballgame. The per-copy costs are high, which puts some limitations on their use; but the fact that you can order/print a single copy opens up all sorts of new doors.

"No doubt many not-very-good books are being manufactured for photographers by Blurb and others, but many gems will be produced as well. Being released from the financial disciplines of conventional publishing (see above) is a bit of a two-edged sword, but the new freedom it brings is wonderful, and beyond price."

Richard: "I wonder how their B&W is these days. I tested it out twice in the past and let's just say simply awful. First time the 'greenies' were really bad, even purposeful sepia was bad. Second time the blacks were still a blah gray. Then again I guess I am expecting a lot for a B&W book for so cheap."

Ann: "I published my one and only book using Blurb. Literally one copy, for myself, of this book. I have a friend whose day job is publishing fine art books for other people. She did an investigation of all the print on demand services for her own work. She decided that none of them would work for her clients' needs, but she recommended Blurb for self publishing. I was happy with the results. The paper and binding was good quality. Unfortunately, since I was only publishing one copy and the cost is so high, I couldn't afford to do any proof copies, and the midtones on some images came out a bit darker than I would have liked. If I were selling the book to others, I would have used it as a proof copy, and made some changes. But overall, I was happy with what I got. I also got the book publishing bug from doing this, so it won't be my last book."

One of the few films among the works of art I've "engaged" with over my lifetime was Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. The film was based on the novel Memoirs of Barry Lyndon Esq. by William Makepeace Thackeray, the first true occurrence of the "antihero" in English literature. It was and is a ravishing visual feast and a particularly effective conjuring of the past in a modern work of art.

If you're interested in the psychological basis of the story, I highly recommend Mark Crispin Miller's essential critical essay "Barry Lyndon Reconsidered" from The Georgia Review Vol. XXX Number 4, but read it just after seeing the movie, not before. (If you've seen it before, note Miller's remark: "All of Kubrick's films demand repeated viewings.")

Cameras Cameras Cameras: A great number of TOP readers have contacted me over the weekend (a weekend lost to work, as my girlfriend was visiting, and I don't think I've ever known anyone whose mere company is more delicious) excitedly pointing me to an auction of a camera museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, which is up the road from me and down by the lake. But easy does it, fellas, this collection has been up for auction before and I linked to it back then.

One friend o' TOP advised, "C'mon Mike, you gotta go visit this guy. Only a one and a half hour drive...I think it's your duty to TOP readers to report on this story :-) ." If we had a reporter, okay. But here's the thing: My ankle is chained to the leg of the desk. Anything I do that isn't writing is bad for the site, my exchequer, and, I might add, the interests of readers, i.e., thou. Alas and alack, but 'tis what 'tis.

(I think that will be my new buzzword, now that "I'm just sayin'" has been forcibly retired due to protest. I have an unaccountable attraction to dopey catchphrases: as my teaching colleagues were learning ever-deepening Artspeak, I went around claiming that my highest term of critical approbation, and thus the keystone of my personal critical apparatus, was "that's really neat!")

Back to that mini-camera-museum: I once wrote a letter to the city fathers of Milwaukee proposing, in the vicinity of the Harley-Davidson Museum, a "Museum of Cool Stuff." It would feature all sorts of the things conventional museums don't collect: cameras, models, stereo equipment, guns, games, a working model railroad, sports gear, on and on. I never got a response, but I thought a museum like that, well done, would draw boys of all ages from all over the country. My reasoning is that we'd have to be totally different to stand a chance of drawing tourists. What, are tourists going to come to see our art museum? Every city has an art museum, and half of them are better than ours. Every city has a concert hall, too, but there's only one Branson Missouri. A Museum of Cool Stuff would have made a perfect home for a really neat collection like this one.

What Ansel meant :

"The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."

—Ansel Adams

Here's an example of what he was using as an analogy:

(The video presents eight different pianists playing the opening bars of Mozart's Fantasia in D minor, K.397, in very different ways. I always think of myself as a gentle guy, but I quite like Friedrich Gulda's "rude, aggressive" approach.) Fascinating.

Michael Perini says of his iPhone 6+, "It is simultaneously not a camera, and one of the most sophisticated cameras I have ever used." Here's a link to a nice portfolio of iPhone photos, courtesy of the cameramaker.

By the way I haven't replaced my iPhone yet. I have choice paralysis: can't decide between the 6 and 6+.

The Littlest Pentaxian: Meet Emma. Her grandfather Ned says, "She's actually pretty good at taking pictures though she prefers my DA35 Macro versus her mom's 18–250mm. Lighter and easier for her to handle." What do you think, would little and cute be good for special access when you're trying to scoop the pack?

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Elisabeth Spector: "Your Museum of Cool Stuff sounds pretty interesting to me. I'm sure I'm not the only girl who would enjoy a visit, alongside all the boys. Just sayin'! (I still like that catch-phrase, by the way. I hope you don't drop it altogether.)"

Saturday, 28 February 2015

Following our discussion of the Leica Correspondent, a.k.a. the Leikravitz, I got the following lovely photo and note from Misha Erwitt, reproduced here with permission:

Hello Mike,

This is something like what Lenny Kravitz must have seen when being photographed by the late great wildman Jim Marshall, though Jim was more likely using an M4.

The M3 pictured here is my favorite camera given to me (after intensive lobbying on my part) by my father after it sat unused in a drawer in his equipment closet for a few years. He bought it from Kryn Taconis's widow at the Magnum office in New York. She appeared there one day with four of Kryn's well-used cameras in the hope that some Magnum photographers would buy them and continue to use them. Unfortunately there were no photographers present and all the cameras were in the process of being sold to the head of the library. Before the deal was concluded my dad showed up and snagged the most well-used of the bunch.

I've had to replace many things in order to keep it functional (many thanks to the incredible Sherry Krauter) and I still use it on occasion today. This is one of the cameras Kryn used during his coverage of the French Algerian war in 1957. This is the "look" I think Kravitz and Leica were going for.

I also have to report that I was sitting with S. in the Acura dealership yesterday waiting for my car to be serviced, and casually picked up a section of USA Today, and my eye fell on an article blurb that said something like "We review a new camera from Leica and Lenny Kravitz." I need to admit that the product upon which we enthusiasts heaped scorn is indeed, manifestly, generating buzz. So then whadda I know?

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Mani Sitaraman: "As the sappy old song says, 'Ain't nothin like the real thing....'"

Steve P.: "What a wonderful note to end on. Proof positive that there's nothing better than the real thing, be it a well-used camera or a life well lived. Can't fake that."

Bob Baillargeon, Ottawa Canada: "Kryn was one of my photography teachers long ago in the early 1970s at Conestoga College in Kitchener Ontario Canada. Kryn always carried his Leicas and taught the art of existing light photography using black-and-white film. He was a kind gent but fair and critical of the shoots we were assigned as his young protégées. Kryn's work is now part of the National Archives here in Ottawa Canada. Kryn also worked for the Dutch underground during WWII documenting life in Holland at that time. He was a great influence in my career and the way that I still use existing light. He was one of Magnum's great photographers. Thanks for publishing this story about him. It's been forwarded to many of my classmates from 40 years ago who were under Kryn's tutelage."

Benjamin Marks: "Nice...I always wanted to have taken enough pictures myself to have a camera like that. Heh. Not there yet. And Sherry? She's my kind of people. A great lady. She has been my go-to Leica specialist for my gear for years."

Trecento: "That's beautiful. Darnit, now I want one."

Michel: "You are a lucky man Mike Johnston to receive this kind of correspondence. What a neat story."

Manuel: "So, are people trying to invent a past by buying the 'Leikravitz?' I didn't want to enter this whole 'Correspondent' controversy because Mike issued a ban on bashing recently, but I believe only a fool—a very rich one, with lots of money and very little sense—will buy this camera. I mean, is he/she trying to fool anyone into thinking he/she's a seasoned photographer—or, even worse, is he/she buying it out of mere frivolity, like people who buy pre-washed jeans? In either case it's absurd. This camera just doesn't make any sense.

"On a more positive note, I'm quite impressed by the work of Misha Erwitt—which, unlike his father's, was unknown to me. Getting acquainted with the work of the most relevant photographers is one of the reasons I come here on a regular basis. Thanks, Mike!"

Doug Wicken: "I was a student of Kryn Taconis for three years at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. I well remember those M3's, which accompanied him everywhere. I recall the very day when I purchased my first Leica, a Canadian-made M4. I visited Kryn at his house in Toronto to show off my new acquisition. He went upstairs and returned with a bubble-wrapped package. Inside was a battered, worn-to-the-brass 13.5 cm lens. He installed it on my new M4 and told me to take a few pictures. He later informed me that the lens once belonged to his friend Robert Capa, and that he acquired it after Capa’s death when his belongings were being distributed among the Magnum members. This is a story I can never forget. It’s great to see his M3 again."

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Apropos the Leikravitz...you'd think I'd like it, because I have a weakness for the look of brassed Leicas and I even took a nickel to a pristine OM-4T once and took some of the paint off the titanium*. Back in the days o' film I used to covet black-paint Leicas, although I never owned one.

I once would have liked a pristine, perfect black-paint Leica with brass underneath...so I could use it hard and allow it to wear naturally. It's like having solid wood furniture. Or a leather suitcase (I just threw out my grandfather's old Hartmann when I moved. It must have dated from the 1960s at least, if not the '50s. It showed all kinds of wear. Alas, it had finally gotten too sorry).

Here's where I come down on the aesthetics of wear and tear and weathering: what I like is not so much objects that are worn down, but objects that can wear down. That is, objects that have integrity, such that they look as good or better when they acquire wear as they do when they're new. That's the nice thing about well-made objects in my opinion.

Also, well-made things last long enough to get worn down. That's one reason why we value the look. Cheap crap breaks, and is thrown away. It never gets to look old.

I've always liked the idea of keeping a car for a very long time. I had a chance in college to buy one of these for $500:

...And I think if I had, I might still be driving it. It's possible.

I think the thing that offended me about the Leikravitz is that it presumes to co-opt and make a commodity out of a style that, when real, can be a legitimate badge of honor. Real correspondents have gotten shot at, and their cameras get worn because they're used hard under grueling conditions. To reduce that to mere fashion is uncomfortably close to a dishonest credential. It's like putting a fake Oscar on your mantlepiece to try to make people think you actually won one.

Or it's like pretending to be a war veteran when you aren't. Would you display a fake Purple Heart? What would that say about your attitude toward people who had earned real Purple Hearts legitimately?

A Purple Heart is a medal given to people who suffered wounds in combat

To me it feels like Leica is disrespecting its own heritage for the sake of its more recent allegiance to making fashion accessories for non-photographers**. The proper response, when Lenny Kravitz proposed his idea to them, would be for them to say "No. Real Leicas earn their wear honestly." Obviously the people running Leica now do not see it that way.

But it's not a big deal. It's a debasing of the old Leitz tradition, a traducement of its honor, but it's minor, and it's not something that hurts anybody. As David Vestal used to say, "So, okay."

Mike

*Seriously, I did—but my motivation was psychological. I was having "first scratch syndrome" (you know, where you're dreading the first scratch on the perfect finish of your new car) and having trouble letting go of the obsessive/compulsive desire to keep my baby in perfect condition. So I took a deep breath and put fake wear on it. It worked; I stopped worrying and started using the camera. The really weird thing about the experience was that it didn't diminish the value of the camera. When I eventually sold it, it fetched the same price as an un-fake-worn example.

**Most people who use Leicas—I would say 90% of the Leica users I've known, and I've known many—use them because they fit the bill as the proper tools for their work. Most Leica users, it's important to keep in mind, are neither poseurs nor jerks. Those who are are just a small minority.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Omer: "Comparing a fake Purple Heart to a purposely distressed camera is way off base. You need to re-consider that analogy. Seriously, a purposely distressed camera is just a *#&! camera, even if it is a Leica. Frankly, I like that look though the price of the LK is beyond my means."

Mike replies: You're not getting the analogy. I'm comparing war veterans to war correspondents. I'm asking you to assess the message that's being telegraphed to the latter. And comparing correspondents to Purple Heart recipients is not off base at all—photojournalists often put themselves in greater danger, more often, than many (not all, but many) soldiers do. Just look at the rate at which they are wounded and die in the line of duty.

KW Leon: "You could outdo the 124 owners if you sent the camera back to Leica to be repainted."

Winwalloe: "I was amused to see a little bit of paint had come off on edges of my sony A900 after years of use and thousands of miles of travel and thousands of pictures. But magnesium doesn't have the warm color of brass."

Ed Hawco: "Your thoughts on wear and tear remind me of the Japanese idea of 'wabi-sabi.' (侘寂) It’s an aesthetic concept based on the acceptance of transience, or 'imperfection, impermanence, and incompletion' as natural and beautiful. It comes from Buddhism and its teaching of the three marks of existence (impermanence, suffering, and emptiness—or absence of self-nature). Wabi-sabi aesthetics include asymmetry, irregularity, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the integrity of natural objects and processes. It’s also where the idea comes from that a broken and repaired object has more aesthetic value than one that has not broken."

Simon Griffee: "Around a year ago I sent Leica my well-worn M9 to be adjusted and have its sensor cleaned. They sent it back with the brass top completely replaced, as new. I was pretty pissed off, but needed the camera and didn't bother to complain."

Hans Berkhout: "Lenny Kravitz was photographed by Jim Marshall. The nicely used/aged cameras of Mr. Marshall's must have left a lasting impression on the musician."

Gunnar Marel: "Those wondering about the specific type of Benz seen in the photo, this one is a 190 model from 1956. It has had three owners. The first one imported it to Iceland new from Germany, sold it to Erlingur Ólafsson shortly after 1970, and the current owner, Örn Sigurðsson, bought it in 1991. The old engine gave up in 1993 and was replaced by an engine from 1957. It has been driven more than 500,000 km (300,000 miles). After 1970 it had the number plate G-11 (no relation to Canon) but after 1991 it got the number R-5151 (signifying Reykjavík). (Source.)"

Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Chuck Albertson tells me that Lynsey Addario will be the guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, Tuesday. If you (like me) don't have regular TV, the show should be viewable tomorrow (? I think) on either Comedy Central's website or Hulu.com, or both.

I hope this notice goes up in time. Er, well, for those of you who don't want to watch it tomorrow.

Mike(Thanks to Chuck)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Many Leica cameras are unique. But now, all 125 examples of the strictly limited Leica M-P ‘Correspondent’ set are all unique, each in its own way. An elaborate wearing process completely by hand has carefully rubbed, scuffed and scratched the black enamel finish away in several places on both the camera and lenses to let the bright brass surface shine through. The look changes every time the camera and lenses are touched and begins new, personally written chapters in the story of their design.

That's right. It's a special limited-edition pre-brassed Leica, with a name calculated to taunt every actual photojournalist who has ever actually used a Leica hard enough to put real wear on it. (Especially those of them who are now out of work.)

As for the, um—aaack!—designer: "Lenny Kravitz is famous around the world as an exceptional and very successful musician. But he treats photography with his Leica with exactly the same passion."

Translations:"Exceptional and very successful musician." Did one of the best-ever covers of The Guess Who's "American Woman."

"Exactly the same passion." Steals classic-rock guitar riffs then proclaims rock and roll is dead.

May I just bring to this post exactly the same passion as Perez Hilton? "Bitch, please!"

(I swear I have never actually spoken that phrase—I'm a grown man, after all—but I did warn you to watch your gag reflex.)

I knew BMW had finally gone off the rails when I learned they were piping fake engine noises into the cabin using the stereo system. Perhaps the "Lenny Kravitz M-P Correspondent" marks the official Jump the Shark moment for the new revived digital-era Leica?

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Ting-li Lin (partial comment): "[Leica has created] a new category of camera condition: 'NLWU' or 'New, Like Well-Used.' Imagine when these cameras go onto the used market, how would a seller describe their conditions? 'Like New, and also Like Well-Used'?"

emptyspaces (partial comment): "Lenny Kravitz is one of the most overrated musicians of all time. If it weren't for the hair and the leather pants, the snakes, the full-length mirrors, the white pianos, and so on...would we care? Do we care? He dresses and acts like a rock star, and that's pretty much it."

Eric Brandon: "While I completely agree with you about the absurdity of the new Leikravitz 'M-P Correspondent,' I'd like to stand up for Lenny Kravitz as a musician. His first album, 1989's Let Love Rule, is a genuine classic and you know as well as anyone that standing on the shoulders of giants doesn't mean you're 'stealing' anything. His most recent album, 2014's Strut, is the best thing he's done since Let Love Rule, and some of the best rock and roll released in the last year. As an audiophile, you should appreciate that both those records sound great too."

William Lewis: "I've recently started playing electric guitar. My axe of choice is a Squier Telecaster. Squier is the 'budget' brand of Fender and is better in many ways, these days, than the low end Fender guitars from Fender proper. Yet go over to the Fender Custom shop and look into buying a reproduction of, say, a classic 1952 Telecaster and you'll have the choice of making it look 'New old stock,' 'Closet Classic,' 'Light Relic,' or 'Heavy Relic' aging. By these standards, the pre-brassed camera would be a 'closet classic' or 'light relic' while the 'heavy relic' would look like a guitar that served someone like Keith Richards or Eric Clapton on the road for decades. An example of a heavy relic Telecaster that is for sale can be seen here. It's just as ugly in guitars as it is in cameras and, frankly, just as stupid. Harsh word I know. But I really can't think of one more appropriate for the precious pretentiousness of a pre-aged tool."

Len Salem: "And then there could be the super extra unique versions with dented bodies, dinged filter threads, and very artistic scratches on the lens outer element. Also, to special order only, fungoid growth inside the lens and light leaks from the base plate. Regrettably all these extras will triple the normal unique price point."

igor: "Does each 'example' come with a large number of unique, artistically made, critically acclaimed shots? If not I am not buying."

Mike replies: You know how you drive an OCD-afflicted collector crazy? Casually suggest that he didn't get the best pre-worn Leikravitz.

"They're all different, you know. And they did a much better job with the brassing on some than on others. Some of them are really beautiful. Yours is...well, it's...okay. I guess."

Gabe (partial comment): "When I was involved with Leica clubs and groups and history I always made sure to read Tina Manley's advice, adventures and experiences. Seeing her comment in the Comments Section here reminds me that she always embodied the classic Leica world-roaming journalist/photographer. Very much worth a look."

I had hoped to have a winner picked for the Keck Photo Contest by now—I had promised the donor of the Hawaiian condo I'd have a name for him by yesterday. And I'm almost there, I really am...

...But people have made it really hard for me. First of all, there were lots of entries. And never have I been involved with any sort of a contest with such high quality entries. The initial sort was a broad "No/Maybe" pass, and the "maybe" pile was higher than the "no" pile! That's never remotely happened before. With every contest I've ever run or judged, and there have been a number, I would say the typical proportion that make it through the initial pass is 1/7 or 1/8. Not this time.

Some people sent three carefully selected pictures that work beautifully together; some sent very well-made prints; L.R. Jasper should teach all of us how prints should be presented; and most of all there are just some wonderful pictures. I could pick three that "go together" beautifully in each of several different genres. I even have to eat some very recent words (written to Moose) because David Boyce sent a print that is almost purely a rectangle of brilliant blue, with just a bit of variation, and I have to admit it really works as a print.

And some of the prints in the "no" pile are very successful, even outstanding photographs...the only problem with them being they're not particularly suitable for a print sale. They're certainly not "rejects" in the conventional sense.

So...I'm trying, I really am. But this is hard.

I'll have a decision soon.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.